February 2021
- Clubhouse Goes Mainstream After Elon Musk's Surprise Appearance
Elon Musk's Clubhouse cameo pushed the invite-only audio app's user base from 3.5M to 8.1M in two weeks, crashing servers along the way.
- SpaceX's Starship SN9 Nails the Ascent, Still Can't Stick the Landing
SN9 flew to 10 km and executed its belly flop reentry, but crashed on landing just like SN8 did in December.
- Bezos Hands Amazon's Keys to Jassy
Jeff Bezos will step down as Amazon CEO in 2021, moving to Executive Chairman as AWS chief Andy Jassy takes over.
- Why every GPU, console, and laptop chip is suddenly sold out
A pandemic-driven scramble for consumer electronics capacity has left GPUs, consoles, and even car computers starved of chips heading into 2021.
- Mars Traffic Jam: Three Missions Converge on the Red Planet This Month
Hope, Tianwen-1, and Perseverance all arrive at Mars within nine days of each other this February.
- A Year Into Remote Work, Developer Tools Are Having a Moment
GitHub's 2020 Octoverse data shows Git-centric tools climbing the ranks as distributed teams lean on async collaboration.
- PS5 and Xbox Series X Restocks Are Still a Nightmare Three Months In
Three months after launch, PS5 and Xbox Series X remain nearly impossible to buy at retail, and Microsoft says the shortage runs at least through June.
- CD Projekt Red Hit by Ransomware, Attackers Claim to Have Source Code
CD Projekt Red says it was hit by ransomware; attackers claim to have stolen source for Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, and Gwent.
- UAE's Hope Probe Enters Mars Orbit, Making History for the Arab World
The UAE's Hope orbiter reached Mars orbit today, making the UAE the first Arab nation to reach another planet.
- Automakers Slash Production as the Chip Shortage Bites Harder
Ford and GM confirm deep Q1 production cuts as the global chip shortage forces automakers to idle plants and delay vehicles.
- Git-First and Loving It: What a Year of Remote Work Taught Us About Dev Tooling
A year into distributed work, pull-request-centric, async-friendly workflows are quietly replacing centralized dev processes.
- Tianwen-1 Slides Into Mars Orbit, and China Joins a Very Short List
China's Tianwen-1 orbiter-lander-rover mission entered Mars orbit on Feb 10, becoming just the sixth successful arrival at the planet.
- The Pandemic Wearables Boom: Fitness Trackers and Rings Go Mainstream
Home workouts and health anxiety have pushed Fitbit and Oura from niche gadgets to everyday health monitors during the pandemic.
- Can an AI Chatbot Actually Be Your Valentine?
A Valentine's Day look at Replika and the growing world of AI companion apps built on large language models.
- 60 More Starlink Satellites Reach Orbit, But SpaceX Loses the Booster
A Falcon 9 delivered 60 Starlink satellites Monday night, but its first stage missed the droneship, prompting a review of upcoming launches.
- Why ARM Laptops Are Suddenly Interesting
Three months after the M1 MacBooks shipped, their battery life and efficiency are forcing a serious rethink of ARM in laptops.
- Facebook Just Turned Off News in an Entire Country
Facebook blocked all news links in Australia overnight, and the collateral damage hit health and emergency services pages too.
- Perseverance Sticks the Landing on Mars
NASA's Perseverance rover touched down in Jezero Crater today, the most precise Mars landing ever attempted.
- Can't Find a PS5? Gamers Are Buying Headsets and Keyboards Instead
With consoles impossible to find, gamers are pouring money into headsets, keyboards, and mice, turning peripheral brands into hot commodities.
- TypeScript Is Eating JavaScript, One Codebase at a Time
Static typing is winning over plain JS as remote teams lean on TypeScript to catch bugs the code review chat can no longer catch.
- Perseverance Sends Home Mars's First Color Pictures and the Sound of Wind
Days after landing in Jezero Crater, Perseverance beamed back color images and the first audio recording of Martian wind.
- Why 'Zero Trust' Became Security's Favorite Buzzword
Remote work is permanent and the perimeter is gone, so security teams are pitching zero trust architectures instead of trusting the corporate network.
- HP Buys HyperX for $425 Million, Right as Fry's Electronics Closes Its Doors
HP is acquiring gaming brand HyperX from Kingston for $425 million, the same day Fry's Electronics announced it's shutting down after 36 years.
- One Year Into the GPT-3 API: What Are Developers Actually Building?
A year after OpenAI opened commercial access to GPT-3, a look at the copywriting tools, chatbots, and code helpers developers are shipping.
- Nvidia's RTX 3060 Arrives at $329, With a Mining Blocker Built In
Nvidia's mainstream RTX 3060 launches at $329 with 12GB of memory and a first-of-its-kind Lite Hash Rate limiter aimed at crypto miners.
- Facebook Blinks: Australian News Returns After Canberra Deal
Facebook agreed to lift its week-long Australian news ban after the government agreed to amend the News Media Bargaining Code.
- What's Next for the Mars Fleet: Ingenuity's Helicopter Gambit
With three missions now at Mars, focus shifts to Perseverance's plan to deploy the experimental Ingenuity helicopter this spring.
- February in Hardware: Chip Shortages, GPU Scarcity, and a $425M Gaming Bet
A month-end look at how the chip shortage kept squeezing consoles and GPUs while Nvidia and HP doubled down on gaming demand.